Tony Scott’s planning a massacre of Sam Peckinpah’s ‘The Wild Bunch’

The notion of remaking “The Wild Bunch” is not a new one. There’s been an ongoing conversation about it for a while now. In January, Borys Kit did a nice rundown of the internal remake conversations going on at Warner Bros., and I lost my damn fool mind about the notion of this particular title going in front of the camera again. It’s asinine for all the reasons I explained before. Even with Brian Helgeland, a very smart guy, writing the remake, I just can’t see it.

I’m having a hard enough time making peace with the notion of a “Straw Dogs” remake, but at least that’s based on a book. With “The Wild Bunch,” I just can’t imagine someone else doing it in a way that improves upon what Peckinpah had to say with that movie. That was as personal a statement as any artist slipped by a major studio in that era. It’s like “remaking” a Picasso. You can paint the same thing he painted. You can even paint it in his style. You might even make aesthetic choices that I like more. But the truth remains… he painted it first, and it was his statement. Yours is just an echo.

The same report also indicates that Tony Scott is interested in doing “Hell’s Angels” with Jeff Bridges as Sonny Barger, with Scott Frank writing the script. Ummmm… YES. THIS. DO THIS. A thousand times over, yes. I’ll even take a Dramamine and sit through the shakiest shaky cam version of that film if it means you’re not going to remake “The Wild Bunch.” Doing a smart character driven movies about the Hell’s Angels in the middle of a gang war sounds like a great match for the types of films Tony Scott makes.

Besides, he’s already busy making a needless extension of “Top Gun” that is either a sequel or a prequel or a remake or a whatever. After all, he can’t let Sir Ridley Scott have all the fun, now, can he?

The only way this post could be a more complete analogy is if I was trying to read this post while simultaneously running cirlces around my computer moniter. Then it would be spot on.

By: Evan H.

08.19.2011 @ 4:35 PM

You write this article, and I agree 100%, but I bet you will be first in line with ticket money in hand to see it, just so you can write another article to complain about it. It seems the general concensus is that people hate remakes. Then why does Hollywood keep making them, you ask? Because we, the general public, will always go see whatever crap comes out of hollywood. I quote Jay Sherman: “If it looks bad, dont go see it. If its a remake of a classic movie, go rent the original.” Which is exactly what I plan on doing with Fright Night tonight…

By: mmcb105

08.19.2011 @ 9:01 PM

He probably won’t be first in line with ticket money, because he mostly goes to press screenings.

Anyways, its not that people hate remakes, although some people do. Its that the recycling has increased more and more as time has went by and that is bad for everybody. Its gotten to the point where movies and properties that weren’t even popular when they first came out are becoming potential franchises (ex. Tron, Blade Runner).

I think the major problem people have with remakes is that for every remake that means there is one less original product. So as the number of remakes increase, the number of truly original properties decreases. It almost seems inevitable that there will come a point where we will see a movie that is a remake of a remake that was a prequel to a movie based on a book that was actually the novelization of another movie.

By: Rosemary

08.19.2011 @ 4:45 PM

You’re hilarious. It helps that I agree with you: I would rather blast my own head off with William Holden’s machine gun than sit through tragically heroic retelling of the Old West.

By: I. S.

08.19.2011 @ 5:20 PM

This awful and false idea that all we want to do is sit around and watch retreads of the classics, remade with today’s production values and hip young directors and actors, has been a cultural catastrophe. And much of the responsibility for it can be laid at the feet of Harry Knowles, who for years had a virtual monopoly on online hype-building and used it to push this idea endlessly. And even though that monopoly is a thing of the past, it has left its ghastly crater-sized mark in the thinking of everyone who deals with movies.

It’s time to move beyond the mistake. None of the toxic nostalgia churned out has worked. The man-child audience has been well and truly pandered to, but everything else is falling into ruin. People want to see something that isn’t a moving storyboard of some one-dimensional infantile obsession. And until they can, they will keep staying away.

Tony Scott has only ever made one movie I really warmed to, and that was all because of Shane Black’s writing, Michael Kamen’s music and a uniformly great cast. If there is going to be a retread, let it be a sequel to something that really warrants it.

By: SenseAndInsense

08.19.2011 @ 5:45 PM

My GOD!

You mean that they’re going to round up all the old copies of the movie and burn them when this comes out?!

Of course not you snobbish twat.

By: I. S.

08.19.2011 @ 5:56 PM

Uh, no. It means that the movie can no longer be viewed as a completely self-contained entity. Remakes whizz in someone else’s pool, that’s why we hate them.

By: William

08.19.2011 @ 6:13 PM

The same yahoo who foisted remakes of “The A-Team,” “The Andromeda Strain” and “The Taking of Pelham 123.” I suppose it’s gonna be Freeman and Hackman instead of Holden and Borgnine this time around.

By: Unforgiving

08.19.2011 @ 8:19 PM

Gene Hackman? He retired about eight years ago.

By: David Larrabee

08.19.2011 @ 10:52 PM

At least they are giving credit to the original unlike so many remakes that call themselves original. Would have been terrible if they pitched it as a western EXPENDABLES. Also interesting to see someone still pitching a western after COWBOYS AND ALIENS bombed. So who is the modern day equivalent of William Holden and Ernest Borgnine? Just can’t see Greg Kinnear (he played the Holden role in SABRINA) and Tom Arnold (he played the Borgnine role in McHALE’S NAVY) assuming those roles.

By: Telf

08.20.2011 @ 12:38 AM

There’s no reason to assume it’ll be a Western.

By: Umi

08.20.2011 @ 12:32 AM

Who the f**k are you to have any say in what Tony Scott or his brother make? They could remake Citizen Kane with Carrot Top in the lead, it’s their choice. When it comes out, don’t watch it. When it comes on TV, CHANGE THE F**KING CHANNEL.

Goddamn internet film critics bitch about every little thing.

By: umi

08.20.2011 @ 12:35 AM

Why don’t you focus on Mortal Kombat: Devastation instead and leave real film-making to the pros?

By: georges garvaren

08.20.2011 @ 1:38 AM

First, there are many Picasso’s that could use a revamp or two. Second, I don’t understand why people are so ‘up in arms’ over remakes. I think The Wild Bunch is one of the greatest films ever made, and perhaps someone who sees the remake will think the same thing. Is that so wrong? Secondly, internet movie sites would be extinct without the ‘news’ of sequels, prequels, and remakes. They may be the devils abortion, but they help pay the bills. Don’t they?

By: Erik C. Hansen

08.20.2011 @ 4:13 AM

Walter Hill did a pseudo remake in the ’80s with Nick Nolte and William Forsythe called EXTREME PREJUDICE, so the notion of a remake is not new.